Year 6 Teachers' Support Thread?

[mamma2016]

Anyone else in need of some friendly support? The SATs stress levels have shot up for me this week and I'd be grateful to be able to talk to others in the same boat.

Year 6 teacher here too. Are you stressed or the pupils (or both?)? It’s such a rubbish time.

Trying to keep the pressure off the kids but lots of our parents care a lot about the SATs and lots are working through CGP books at school. I've been in year 6 four times now and have felt fine until now. It's the mistakes in maths stressing me out- I teach the LA group, who aren't bad mathematicians, just make silly mistakes. Our reading and spag look promising but I'm worrying about the percentages in maths!

I am dreaming about data. I am the sole year 6 teacher and running boosters as well. I'm exhausted and it all falls on me. Doing mocks at the moment and so drowning in marking. I can't see many of mine getting combined this year. Just clinging on till the end!

Our maths results weren't great last year (below national) so there's lots of pressure there. I'm the only UKS2 teacher and it's a small school (10 in cohort) with a mixed 5/6 class. Likely to be moderated for writing this year too.

We do OK in general results, but never enough Greater Depth. Our progress always looks dubious.

It frustrates me that they do so well in their KS1 SATs

Thank you both for responding.

Our maths have been our weakest too and I'm anxious about the number of marks needed for expected rising each year.
We're also doing mocks this week. We're trying to encourage more of them to ask for questions to be read, which they never do!
We also have the progress issue. It just feels so much harder than getting them to level 4 or 5. This cohort came up with a lot of level 3s which will convert to high standardised scores predictions.

Do your children sit their tests in the hall or in classrooms?

We're running boosters too and I'm now trying to work out the best use of the 13 teaching days after the Easter hols.

We do our tests in the classroom so it’s as normal as possible.
We are doing shadow questions this week based on the 2018 reasoning questions that they got wrong. Just keep going back and analysing common mistakes and tying to fill the gaps in maths. Only two more booster sessions as they’re after school. Only me to run them. Lots of level 3s at KS 1 so expect progress will bite us on the bum even if attainment is better. They need to make so few mistakes to get greater depth it just feels impossible. I’ve heard of local schools doing Easter booster sessions and some Saturday sessions too. Dreadful pressure on staff and children.

The KS1 marks kill my progress every time. Years 3, 4, 5 all acknowledge the defecit but it's 6 that gets clobbered. It's a farce. I can never show good enough progress.

Looks like we're all in the same boat. My kids did a lot better in the last round of SATs. I'm just hoping that the thresholds don't go up again this year!

No SATs here (Wales) but annual tests in Maths procedural - online this year for the first time, so goodness knows how well that will work or how the children will tackle them, Maths reasoning and reading. At least every year group from y2 to y9 has to do them, so they work towards them every year.

We do have moderation of levels rearing it's head and the pressure of seeing if the other schools in the cluster agree with our levels. And ensuring that there's enough of a range between now and then to demonstrate the levels - despite there then being more than a month of teaching time yet.

Then add having to have lots of evidence for 2nd language Welsh.

And the first time I've had to do a show as a year 6 teacher.

And the new curriculum (Donaldson) finally being available to see in late April with all the connotations going forward to having to overhaul all topics and planning.

I'm glad we don't have SATs too!

I can't get their com bined up no matter what I do! I am dreading the annual raising of the pass threshold. So many of mine are 100/ 101/ 102. They've made great progress from the late 80's, but that means nothing. I feel so bad for them, and me! Pay rise looking unlikely, my targets are so stupid.

Wow no one should be under this type of pressure. Performance related pay in schools is totally ridiculous and sabotages real learning. I'm shocked at what I'm reading. This is shouldn't be falling on individuals' shoulders. There's something highly disfunctional about this system.

@ourkidmolly
Unfortunately this is the reality in so many schools. There is such a huge drive on data and 'expected progress' rates. None of it focuses on children and it ends up putting too much pressure in them.

Even when more children do well, the thresholds then increase so only a certain percentage can be over 'expected standard' anyway! It's depressing!

@phlebasconsidered

Mine are also at the 100/101/102 area. Trying to wind down for Easter hols now and then hoping three weeks of revision will be enough.... or that I win the lottery...

Year 6 teacher here too. Our writing is my biggest stress at the moment. Specifically, increasing the amount of greater depth writers. I’m English Leader too and apparently that means I can work miracles 🙄

The prob with GD writing is it means the child has to basically be an adult! The exemplar GD pieces shown at my LA moderation hub set the bar so high. It doesn't seem on a par with GD maths, SPAG or reading. The standard is much harder to reach. Not many adults can use semi-colons and colons precisely all of the time!

Gd is pure nonsense now. 12 years ago I taught Secondary. GD was year 9 standard. We didn't even teach subjunctive until the old year 9 SATS.

If Dickens posted Great Expectations on the FB year 6 moderation pages he'd be hauled over the coals.

The most soul destroying thing is that they won't do any writing in such depth through the whole of year 7 and 8. The system is screwed.

just remember that of all the teachers that have had the pupils in their school career, you are likely to be the ones who have had them for the shortest amount of time by they time they take their tests.

What did you think of the SPAG and Reading paper?
We thought the SPAG was tough, spellings ok and reading ok.

Spag had really upped the game. By a lot! Spellings were ok. Reading was far, far too long for the time and the questions were evidence heavy. The 3rd text was ridiculous. It was a complete rehash of the dodo year for me. The third text in particular was inaccessible for EAL. The 2nd had less layout advice than ever before and the questions were all over the place. I am expecting to crash and burn!

Omg: the reasoning! Talk about wordy questions. Absolutely awful. Feels like they've upped the ante massively.

Our kids found the reasoning tricky. They felt ok about the arithmetic. Maybe tomorrow's will be kinder....? Here's hoping.
So hard to know what the thresholds will be!

Our Y6 teacher thought the maths was pretty wordy too.

I'm back in Y6 next year - first time since the rehabilitation of the dodo. Feeling for you all. It's utterly horrid data wise, especially with a small cohort. Our children are all taking it in their stride I think, but it's pretty full on stuff.